Black Ops

“My Carlos, hear out Dmitri,” Svetlana said, then added, “Please, my darling.”

“I’m all ears,” Castillo said after a moment, and gestured impatiently for him to explain.

Berezovsky nodded. “Carlos, it is said that the Germans and the Russians are very much alike; that’s why the wars between us kill so many millions—”

“What I draw from that philosophical observation is: ‘So what?’ ” Castillo interrupted.

“—That we are either on our knees before our enemies when we believe we cannot win a conflict, or tearing at their throats when we think we can triumph. The only time there is peace between us is when both sides realize that the price of hurting the other is being yourself hurt.”

“There is a point to this, right? And you’re going to get to it soon?”

“When it was the U.S. versus the U.S.S.R., this concept was called ‘Mutual Assured Destruction,’” Berezovsky went on. “And thus there was no exchange of nuclear weapons.”

“Where are you going with this?”

You know where he’s going with it, stupid!

Berezovsky started to say something. Castillo silenced him with an upraised hand, and said, “We have to take out some of their people, preferably the ones who whacked some of ours, to teach them there’s a price to pay?”

“Otherwise, this won’t stop,” Davidson said.

“Knowing something of how Putin’s mind works,” Berezovsky picked up, “I can tell you he is going to evaluate the five assassinations we know about—and I’m sure there were more—and decide, depending on the speed and ferocity of the reaction to them, whether he should pull in his horns or see how much more he can get away with before the enemy charges a price he doesn’t wish to pay.”

“Some of this is personal for me, Charley,” Davidson said. “I really don’t want to spend the rest of my life—on whatever sunny beach I find myself in retirement—looking over my shoulder.”

“Nor I,” Berezovsky said.

Svetlana didn’t say anything out loud, but her eyes also said, Nor I.

And neither do I, goddamn it.

Sexy Susan said, “CWO Leverette for Corporal Bradley, Class One Encryption.”

“C. G. Castillo.”

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” Leverette’s voice said, “I’ll talk to him.”

“Go ahead, gentlemen,” Sexy Susan said.

“You’re watching the radio in the middle of the night, are you, Colonel? What did she do, kick you out of bed?”

“I understand you’ve already displeased Colonel Hamilton. You sure you want to do that with me, too, Mr. Leverette?”

“Negative.”

“I didn’t expect to hear from you for another twenty-four hours or so.”

“As I just explained to Colonel Hamilton, sir, I meant that forty-eight-hour period to mean the longest time we might be gone.”

“He’s there with you?”

“Good morning, Colonel Castillo,” Hamilton said.

“Good morning, sir.”

“Mr. Leverette has assured me that our little problem was a communications breakdown.”

“I felt sure it was something like that, sir.”

“Some good news and some bad, Colonel,” Leverette said.

“Good first. I’ve just had some bad.”

“As we speak, Phineas is taking the vehicles and a dozen shooters across the bridge. I found several Congolese officials who became very sympathetic to our desire to collect small fauna for the Fayetteville Zoo after I gave them a great deal of money.”

“Only a dozen shooters?”

“I’ll explain that when I get to the bad news. These same officials were also kind enough to rent me four outboard motorboats—not bad ones, with 150-horsepower Yamahas; they told me they stole them from the UN—at a price I would say is only four or five times what they’re worth, even in this neck of the woods. And further, to show us the place where the boats will be hidden from sight until—and I hope this never happens—it is necessary to launch them as an alternative method of leaving the Congo.

“It is my intention to use four of the shooters as guards on the fleet while the rest of us try to catch parrots —”

“Parrots?”

“—and whatever else we might happen across. Yeah, parrots. Our new friends are in the wild livestock business. They offered us everything up to and including gorillas. We settled on parrots.”

“The Congo African Grey Parrot,” Hamilton furnished, “Psittacus erithacus erithacus, is regarded as the most intelligent of the species. They bring anywhere from a thousand dollars to several times that much in Washington.”

“As I said,” Leverette went on, “our new friends somehow got the idea we’re trying to catch and illegally export African Grey Parrots. They said the birds may be found in large numbers along the Ngayu River, on both sides of National Route 25.

“They also said—I’m not sure if this is bad news or good news—that we should be very careful not to go past kilometer marker 125 on Route 25, because beyond that is where the Arabs and the bad water are.

“I asked them what the Arabs are doing in that area, and they said they didn’t know, possibly poaching elephants for their ivory, or maybe engaged in the slave trade, but the bottom line being that very few people who go deep into that area are ever seen alive again.

“The bodies of those who do venture too far, my new friends told me, are often found on the shoulders of Route 25, as far west as Kilometer 120. And I mean bodies—none are buried. Seems that some missionaries—I didn’t know until they told me that there were Congolese missionaries, black guys, who didn’t take off when the Belgians and Germans and French were mostly run out of this paradise—did try burying the dead, then suddenly came down sick and died very unpleasantly. As did large numbers of various carnivores that thought they’d found free lunch on the roadside.”

“Jesus!” Castillo said.

“Amen, brother. And, to round off this National Geographic lecture on the fascinating Congo, there are no fish in the crystal-clear waters of that stretch of the scenic Ngayu River. Sometimes, in the past, there were fish kills, but no longer. Suggesting, perhaps, one fish kill too many—”

“All of this, as you can well imagine, Castillo,” Colonel Hamilton said, “has rather whetted my curiosity.”

“—So, as soon as I hear from DeWitt that the shooters and the pickups are across the border, Colonel Hamilton and I are going to join them. We will drop four shooters at the boats, with one truck, to ensure our new friends don’t rent them to other parrot hunters.

“The rest of the scientific expedition will then drive up Route 25, which we pick up in Kisangani, to Kilometer 120. There, we’ll split into three groups. Colonel Hamilton said he can learn a lot from the bodies and—presuming, of course, that our new friends have been telling the truth—the water in the Ngayu. The other two will reconnoiter the area beyond Kilometer 125.

“This time, Charley, when I say we’ll be back in seventy-two hours, that’s conservative.”

Castillo said, “Same question: Why are you not taking the other team?”

“I’m going with my gut, Charley. The fewer of us the better. Less chance of detection.”

“Your call, Uncle Remus,” Castillo said.

Hamilton cleared his throat. “I thought you and I had discussed that unfortunate appellation, Colonel Castillo.”

Go fuck yourself, Hamilton.

“Yes, sir, we have. It won’t happen again, sir.”

“Charley, don’t call us. We’ll call you. I don’t want some raghead with an RPG and a Kalashnikov wondering who the broad with the sexy voice is.”

“Isn’t there a way to disable the audio function of the radio?” Colonel Hamilton asked.